So, can I just say that I am kind of sad for kids these days?
First of all, trying to toy shop for kids in today’s world is a nightmare since 90% of the children I know are iPad zombies and don’t actually play with toys anymore.
What happened to the days where girls played with Barbies and spent hours dressing them up or arranging their homes just-so? Or when boys built intricate race tracks to send their Hot Wheels flying? Or hey, all the hours I spent playing with Legos and Hot Wheels, or even playing Freeze Tag outside with the neighborhood kids.
I’m afraid I’m going to sound crotchety, but forreals, back in my day, kids didn’t have their faces constantly buried in electronic devices that are worth more than my car. They read Dr. Seuss books, they watched classic cartoons, they played with actual, tangible toys, and they had fun. I will bet any child nowadays doesn’t even know what the game of M.A.S.H is. Or that they’ve never seen A Year Without A Santa Claus. Or that they’ve never seen a Disney movie where the characters were not voiced by celebrities.
Dude, old-tymey Christmas movies are the best. Charlie Brown Christmas? Year Without A Santa Claus? Old school Rudolph? The Frosty the Snowman from circa 1970s? All so good! Sure, the animation is terrible at times and the clay/stop-motion figures made some hideous faces and always seemed to have overbites, but I liked that they are so simple. Frosty doesn’t have an iPhone and Rudolph isn’t live-tweeting his location.
Plus, while I did grow up with these classics, I also grew up with an infamous family favorite. I know I’ve talked about it before, but in case you’re new here, and/or you’d like to have nightmares tonight, let me tell you about Der Schneemann.
Somewhere, at some point in time, my grandma procured this terribly frightening German cartoon about a snowman. It was like Frosty if Frosty was a horror film and gave you night terrors for weeks. In it, a snowman named Whitey (which we affectionately called him) is born in a small German village and proceeds to go on a crime spree which includes abusing a dog, breaking & entering into someone’s home and hiding out in their freezer, and then escaping in July, only to be eaten alive by rabbits (I’m not even kidding).
.
Don’t kill me, schneemann!
Anyway, how is a creepy German snowman cartoon relevant? Because #Yolo. Wait, is that not an adequate excuse? Let me try again.
How is a creepy German snowman cartoon relevant? Because growing up watching it and being scared that Whitey was going to show up in my freezer made me appreciate the classic cartoons like the real Frosty and classic, traditional things about being a kid, like playing with Barbies or building Lego towns. And I think if parents nowadays force their children to watch Whitey in all of its terrifying 13 minutes, their children would begin to appreciate the typical kid-like things and put down the iPad. At least I’d hope. And if nothing else, at least the kid will have night terrors and might reach in the night for his teddy bear or baby doll rather than cold, hard, shiny glass and plastic.
The end! /end parenting rant.
Anyways, speaking of snowmen, I happen to enjoy the adorable ones — not the scary ones who get eaten by rabbits. With Christmas around the corner, I decided to whip up some SUPER EASY and really cute Snowman Donut Pops! Not only are they simple to make, they’re a fun activity to engage the kids in — think of all the candy possibilities and the faces the kids can make with mini M&M’s, chocolate chips, or Twizzlers?
And if they happen to look scarier than you’d anticipated… well, you could always just pull a German rabbit and eat that sucker.
- 1 box store-bought glazed or plain donut holes (do not use the powdered kind as the powdered sugar will look funky)
- 1 pkg vanilla Candiquik or white chocolate almond bark
- 1 small square (or about ¼ cup) milk chocolate bark
- Oreo cookies
- Reese's Peanut Butter Bells, unwrapped
- Miniature M&M's candies
- Miniature chocolate chips
- Lollipop sticks
- Assorted other candies, if you'd like (think Twizzlers or sour rope for scarves, sunflower seeds for pointy noses, sprinkles for buttons, etc)
- Line a rimmed baking sheet with foil and set aside. Gently twist three donut holes onto one lollipop stick to form the snowman body. Repeat with remaining donut holes. Freeze for about 30 minutes or until firm.
- Meanwhile, in a large microwaveable bowl, melt the Candiquik until smooth and melted. Dip each donut pop into the white chocolate mixture, very gently twirling the lollipop stick to allow any excess chocolate to drip off. Return the donut snowman to the cookie sheet.
- Working quickly, affix the miniature M&M nose (I used orange) and the miniature chocolate chip eyeballs. If you'd like any other facial expressions or adornments, affix them now.
- Quickly melt the remaining milk chocolate in a small bowl. Untwist the Oreos and separate the plain sides from the frosted. Attach a Reese's PB bell to the flat, plain Oreo side using the melted milk chocolate. Then gently dip a bottom portion of the hat in the white chocolate and carefully place it onto the snowman's head.
- Once the pops are set, serve!
Have a fantastical day!
xo, Hayley
tanya says
First of all, Whitey is Hillarious!!! Oh my gosh, what a cartoon to watch as a kid! And second, yes, I hate when all I see are kids with their noses in screens! It is wrong. But I happen to know lots of kid who would rather be outside running and playing tag or drawing or playing Legos. So all is not lost! And I know 3 little kids would die to have these snowmen!
Pamela @ Brooklyn Farm Girl says
I love Snowman anything and everything, my favorite part of the holidays!
Kayle (The Cooking Actress) says
HEAR HEAR! Preach! Yeah I fully agree on the children things. And the worst thing is it’s so hard to give them the childhoods we had, even if you do try. Sad. So sad.
also…um…WTF Germans be cray cray.
at least there are cute yet delicious treats such as these, to bring sense to a weird world.
Sophia @ NY Foodgasm says
These are sooooo darn adorable! LOVEs them!
Wendy | Around My Family Table says
Ha ha! I love the classics, but Der Schneemann kinda scares me! Glad you chose to make super cute snowmen.
Nicole @ Young, Broke and Hungry says
Thankfully, I dont know anyone under the age of 12 so I can skip over the kids toys this year because seriously? What happened to the good old days? I love how easy these snowman are, not to mention the cuteness factor.
Red @ Adventures of a Hungry Redhead says
You. Are. A. Genius. I can always count on you to incorporate more donuts into my life!
Ashley @ Kitchen Meets Girl says
OMG, these are so cute! I need to make these for Doodle’s class! And guess what we’re watching tonight – Charlie Brown Christmas. It’s one of our favorites.
Dorothy @ Crazy for Crust says
We tried the old time movies…they didn’t go over so well, ha. Neither did ET. But these snowmen would go over awesome!
Jennifer @ Not Your Momma's Cookie says
I feel you on kids these days. As a new mom, I think about this quite a bit. I remember playing outside, alone, and hours as a kid! Most of them don’t have the attention span to do something like that anymore 🙁 I also remember playing with a friend that had a huge plastic container of My Little Ponies and we would spend SO much time dividing up our “herds” and creating stories!
I’m also a sucker for the old Christmas specials – my favorite is the Garfield Christmas special and Claymation Christmas. They never play them on TV anymore, but I have them both on DVD and it is such a special experience to watch them during the holidays 🙂
Holy long comment – your snowmen look wonderfully delicious!
Jess @ On Sugar Mountain says
Bahahaha well I’m glad these donut pops are too cute to give me nightmares of evil snowmen on crime sprees! They are so freaking adorable, Hayley! I miss the old days too but alas, nickelodeon is now full of teen angsty shows and there’s no hey arnold in site. >_<
Sarah @ Miss CandiQuik says
CUTEST thing I’ve seen all day!!
Akilah says
Would bakers chocolate work? Would baking chocolate work? Sorry, Christmas in July party tomorrow and in a small town…